The effects of the low-carb diet in the body composition and weight loss

Numerous approaches are advised for reducing weight, like consistent physical activity, medication, surgical procedures, and strict-eating plans. These can be taken up individually or combined to attain the sought-after outcomes and, as a result, hinder complications linked to being overweight (Paoli, 2014). In this context, restrictive diets show up as one of the most used strategies.

To verify the effectiveness of the low-carb diet in changing body composition.

This integrative review used the databases PubMed, Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS) and Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO). Data were collected from 2016 to July 2020, using the following descriptors in Portuguese and English: “low carbohydrate diet,” “ketogenic diet,” and “low carbohydrate diet and weight loss.”

The search resulted in 10 trials and 4 reviews. After descriptive analysis, the results showed that the ketogenic diet (20–50 g of carbohydrates/day), a low-carb diet variant, is the most studied and generates positive outcomes, but its less extreme variant (< 130 g/day) also leads to a reduction of the weight. It is possible that a low-carb diet has effects on body composition such as weight and body fat and, when combined with exercise, can prevent the loss of muscle mass. The low-carb diet changes body composition with weight loss, body fat reduction, and muscle mass maintenance.

The low-carb diet proved to be as efficient as conventional hypoenergetic diets, but little is known about its long-term maintenance.